Tenafly councilman arrested for child pornograpy loses; GOP still leads in Bogota

Tenafly votes resoundingly defeated Council President Jeffrey Grossman, a middle school teacher arrested last month on child pornography charges, and his Democratic running mate, Beatriz Pelaez-Martinez, is trailing by sixteen votes.

Independent John Roglieri was the top-vote-getter with 1,765 votes; his running mate, Jamie Corsair, leads Pelaez-Martinez, 1,661 to 1,645.   Grossman received 988 votes.

County election officials reported 104 uncounted provisional ballots; vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by 8 PM on Election Day.

Republicans had no local candidates this year.

Pelaez-Martinez defeated incumbent Lauren Dayton in the Democratic primary.

Mark Zinna, the Democratic mayor who ran for governor in 2017, was re-elected by 795 votes against independent Peter Rustin, 61%-39%.

Assemblywoman Shama Haider, the Tenafly Democratic municipal chair, called Grossman to resign.

Republicans hold an 11-vote lead in the race for mayor of Bogota,  with Daniele Fede, a former councilwoman, attorney, and first responder, leading Democrat Mary Ellen Murphy, 819 to 808, in a race that remains too close to call.

Nineteen provisional ballots remain uncounted,  according to a Bergen County Clerk’s office report.

Murphy gave up her council seat to run for mayor.  Republican Chris Keleman did not seek re-election after two terms.

But Democrats hold a narrow lead in the race for two borough council seats and could retain their 6-0 majority.  Diana Vergara won an open seat – she has 836 votes – and former Councilwoman Lisa Kohles leads Republican Michale Connors by 11 votes, 715 to 804.  Another GOP candidate, Marco Navarro, has 742 votes.

Gov. Phil Murphy won Bogota with 60% of the vote two years ago.

Bogota put conservative leader Steve Lonegan on the map when he was elected mayor in 1995 and re-elected twice.

In a significant flip for Republicans, Eric Kulmala won a rematch with four-term Oakland Mayor Linda Schwager.

She had beaten Kulmala by 67 votes in 2019; this year, Kulmala leads by 65 votes,  with 47 uncounted provisional ballots.

Schwager had first been to local office in 1990 and served five terms as a Republican councilwoman.  She switched parties in 2007 and ousted GOP Mayor John Szabo.  She won 46% of the vote as the Democratic State Senate candidate against Gerald Cardinale (R-Demarest ) in 2017, his last campaign before he died in 2021.

The GOP also picked up a mayoralty in Oradell, where former James Koth defeated Democrat Tracey Schoenberg, the council president, with 54% of the vote.  He’ll replace Democrat Diane Carmelo Didio, who did not seek re-election.

In a contest for two seats on the Rochelle Park Township Committee, GOP Mayor Jennifer Appice was easily re-elected in a six-way race, but Democrat Teresa Judge Carvello defeated embattled Republican incumbent Perrin Mosca.  Two independents,  including former Republican Mayor Joseph Scara, spoiled Mosca’a’s bid to stay in office.   Democrat Thomas Miller won an unexpired term.

Voters in Palisades Park split their votes in the race for two council seats, with Democratic incumbent Suk “John” Min and Republican newcomer Youbong Won-Yoon coming out on top.  Paramus is now all-Republican, with veteran Democratic Councilwoman MariaElena Bellinger losing by over 1,100 votes.

In East Rutherford, Democrat Jeffrey Lahullier won a rematch with Republican Sergio Segalini by nine percentage points and a 167-vote margin; four years ago, Lahullier, a former GOP councilman, defeated Segalini by just five votes.

Elmwood Park’s Republican mayor, Robert Colletti, won a second term in a ten-point victory over Democrat Daniel Golabek, a councilman and former interim mayor.

Following the retirement of Mario Kranjac, the controversial GOP mayor of Englewood Cliffs, the GOP held the office with Mark M. Park defeating Democrat Kris Kim by a 54%-46% margin.

In a race between two councilmen, Republican Robert Kistner was elected mayor of Hasbrouck Heights in a sixteen-point landslide against Democrat Christopher Hillmann, a political appointee at the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Commission.   Hillmann gave up his council seat to run for mayor after GOP incumbent Jack DeLorenzo decided not to seek re-election.

Woodcliff Mayor Carlos Rendo, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2017, was re-elected with 46% of the vote against Democrat Nancy Gross.

Robert Fisher, an 18-year-old Vanderbilt University freshman, won a school board race in Park Ridge.

Republicans flipped the Dumont mayoralty and a council seat in Moonachie, where Bradford Haberlin leads incumbent Manuel Martinez, Jr. by 29 votes to become the lone GOP councilman there.